WFMU: Live from 43 Monty

Mix Info

There are many great things about the Free Music Archive, but one of the greatest is the number of live sets it offers that were recorded right in the WFMU studios at 43 Montgomery Street in Jersey City, New Jersey. More and more bands are jumping aboard the FMA, allowing us to share their live sessions with those who may have missed the original broadcasts. 2010 brought a bumper crop of great new live sessions of all kinds, from punk to electronic to experimental to whatever you call that thing Arrington de Dionyso was up to this year. The FMA was able to share a whole bunch of them.

New live music isn't the whole story, though. In 2010, the FMA continued to plumb the WFMU archives for worthy older sessions, too. WFMU has featured (and preserved) live music in one form or another for well over 20 years, and as the old DATs get dusted off and resurrected, hopefully there will be more "lost" radio sessions that will reappear on the FMA by bands still with us as well as some that are no more.

The mix I've made below is a collection of live music highlights from sessions added to the FMA in 2010. Some were performed as recently as a month ago, and others are almost ten years old, but all of them are from sessions worth checking out in their entirety. My choices aren't really representative of the great breadth of live music offered by the FMA; I just picked some personal favorites in a highly subjective way. I encourage you to dig in and make your own mix from the best of WFMU live music. You probably won't be able to stop at just one.